Dashboard Elvis is Dead, page 31
The following day, Jamie Hewitt’s body is found floating in shallow water near the rocky western edge of Gigha, a remote island off the west coast of Kintyre in Scotland. The island has a population of 158 people. Those interviewed claim to have had no idea that Jamie Hewitt had lived amongst them since the late nineties. Jamie Hewitt’s death would later be reported as misadventure.
At the end of a week in which these news items rocked me, First Minister Anna Mason shocked the entire country by resigning from her position.
I can’t know with any certainty what Jude Montgomery’s tapes contained, beyond the bare bones of the memoir she said she was writing. She had told me that the death of her high-school boyfriend in a mass shooting was the catalyst for the trajectory of her entire life from that point on.
I can only imagine the torment Jamie Hewitt went through in the years before his death, sketched out in the folder full of hand-written confessions he sent me.
It’s purely my conjecture that Anna Mason’s resignation was connected to the discovery of Jude’s tapes and the subsequent death of Anna’s former boyfriend, Jamie Hewitt. But given their tangled history, surely these events are too closely linked to be pure coincidence.
I took Jude’s advice. I discovered my own creativity in another person’s voice. Hers.
This book lacks something that might be expected of it: the tying up of loose ends. But that isn’t my job. It’s yours. I’m passing over the responsibility. You might speculate that Jude Montgomery and Anna Mason did in fact have a meeting prior to Jude’s murder, and that, during it, Jude recorded Anna confirming that she and Jamie felt equally responsible for her brother Brian’s death. Anna might also, in this recording, have alluded to her exploitation of the band’s publishing rights, uncontested by any of the members of The Hyptones. If Anna suspected the tapes found in Chic Chalmers’ mother’s flat included the details of this conversation, her political position would’ve been untenable.
You might also consider Jamie Hewitt’s death as suspicious, and not the misadventure verdict that was recorded. If Ronnie Mason feared his lifelong dealings were about to be exposed, he might act in a way that removed all potential threats. Were that the case, however, you might ask why Jamie Hewitt survived as long as he did. I’d answer that simply: despite everything, Anna Mason still really loved him. She never married after Jamie, and there is no evidence of relationships with other people. Hers was the most heartbreaking of all loves … the love that isn’t reciprocated. It would’ve been uncomfortable for Ronnie, but as long as Jamie was well out of the picture, everything would’ve been manageable. High-risk stakes for Anna Mason given her political stature, but a situation that she’ll have felt she still had control of.
To further this theory of Mason family control, I’d also pose this question: if the discovery of Jude Montgomery’s tapes and notebooks were so public, why has their content never yet been published? Powerful people have many ways of maintaining that power.
In the end, the truth doesn’t matter … only your perspective does.
I read of Jude Montgomery’s death in a small column buried away deep inside the Glasgow Herald. The suspected murder of a renowned American photographer and journalist should’ve been bigger news. Media outlets seemed preoccupied with the first days of Anna Mason’s leadership of her party and her rule as first minister. For the days and weeks following, I hid myself away in my flat, fearing and anticipating the call from the police, but it never came. I reasoned that unless Jude had written or recorded anything of our brief meeting, investigators wouldn’t have known we’d met nor that I had provided her with Chalmers’ address. I don’t know why I didn’t volunteer this information. Anxiety? Fear? The terrible realisation that I was implicated? That I’d be extracted from the security of my anonymity? That the shallowness of my own life would be exposed during the inevitable trial? I don’t know. One of those decisions, and who knows if they are ever for the best.
Over the course of two miserable weeks in March 2015, during which it rained every day, I sat in the back row of Glasgow Sheriff Court’s public benches. Once again, I don’t know why I did. Guilt, perhaps. Curiosity, most certainly. Charles Chalmers was on trial for the murder of Judithea Montgomery. I felt that I owed it to Jude to see justice being delivered for her. To find out more about her life and her achievements. Or maybe just to relieve myself a little of the enormous burden I was carrying.
Chalmers’ not-guilty plea was based on a flimsy defence that the woman’s death was an accident, occurring during a drug deal that had gone wrong. Only character witnesses called to speak for the defence were presented to the court. They included a social worker, a probation officer, and a shifty youth who claimed that an American woman approached him for drugs outside the Red Road flats on the night she died. The accused’s mother, Eileen Chambers, and her close friend, Sarah Docherty, both testified under oath to having encountered the same American woman in a city-centre café on the afternoon of her death.
‘She was right there, tryin’ tae phone her dealer in front ae us,’ Eileen Chambers told the court.
‘It’s just incredible that it turned oot tae be Charlie she wis callin’,’ said Sarah Docherty.
The prosecution made short work of this unlikely coincidence, and of Chalmers’ plea. He was sentenced to life with no possibility of parole before 2033. But during the proceedings, I learned nothing of Jude’s background that couldn’t be found online. No-one was called to defend her honour. It was as if her life and her death were being conveniently erased. This only multiplied the disgust I had for myself and magnified the regret that I hadn’t gone to the police earlier.
Who knows where the inspiration to be creative comes from? I spent fruitless decades searching for the creative spark to compose writing that mattered. Words and sentences that tackled human frailty at the same time as lifting the spirit. Disposable fluff pieces for lifestyle magazines offered me little in the way of fulfilment. I craved the freedom of the fiction writer. No need for painstaking research. Of making all the facts align with the permissions to publish them.
We live in the Age of Information. Everything you could ever conceivably want to find out about a person, famous or not, is available in only a few clicks. But how much of it can we trust? Aside from the time of birth and the date of death, the truth of an incident or an occurrence – or even the story of a life – is wrapped up in the telling and the perspective of the teller.
As I sat on those unforgiving wooden benches, listening to implausible excuses, fabricated solely to salvage something from a desperate criminal’s wasted life, I started to imagine the life he had taken. I sketched out a tragic story of lonely, damaged individuals; of the hopes and dreams and fears and regrets that Jude’s killing would leave unrealised. Of how ordinary people – strangers – exist in extraordinary times, until random acts and coincidental occurrences throw them together, and the direction of their lives are forever altered and entwined. I felt compelled to tell Jude’s story because no-one else was doing it.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of this author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
But that’s just a necessary legal disclaimer. And most of the time, patently not true. It was necessary because I could ill-afford to revisit the Madonna machinations – a perpetuity for which I’m still contractually bound by a form of inhibitory omerta.
A question directly asked of my previous writing, ‘Ballad of the Band’: ‘Is this fiction masquerading as fact? Or fact dressed up as fiction?’ The difference between fiction and nonfiction is whether the content is invented or factual, isn’t it? But once again, who is the arbiter of the facts? Whose truth can we fully rely on? During a radio interview in the latter part of 1983, Jamie Hewitt said:
‘We didn’t know what was happening – even as it was happening to us.’
Those at the epicentre of an old story often recall it in a way that paints a favourable picture or reinforces a certain perspective. Eventually there’s no truth. Only perspective.
I am complicit in the tragic events that this book concludes with. Not only did I provide Jude Montgomery with the address of her killer, but I also alerted him that she was coming. That he should trust her to tell his story and that she would pay for his information. I completely underestimated the depths to which Chic Chalmers had fallen, and that ignorance cost a life.
Just like my father before me, I have no understanding of happiness, how to recognise it nor how to cultivate it. His solution was to end his life. Although similar thoughts have often crossed my mind, I lack the courage for that. I have no idea what the future holds for me, but it won’t include writing. This is Jude Montgomery and Jamie Hewitt’s book, not mine. It may not soar with the lasting and memorable majesty of ‘Independent State of Mind’ or paint as vivid a picture of the human struggle as Hinterland, but this story salutes them. Two people who deserve to be remembered, not least for the positive impact they had on the people around them. It is the very least I owe them.
Why do we write? Often, it’s just to fill the time before death, nothing more.
David F. Ross
December 2022
Acknowledgements
Dashboard Elvis Is Dead began life as a screenplay prompted by a story told to me by Robert Hodgens. It has grown – as initial creative seeds often do – into something completely different and more expansive in its ambition. But I remain grateful to Bobby for his friendship and for the kernel of an idea that just wouldn’t let go.
Thanks also to Ken McCluskey, Lawrence Donegan, Karen Allison, Stephen Cameron and Dakota Farmer, and to Mike Richmond, Love Tractor, Janet Delaney, and Andy Scott for their time, and for allowing me to fictionalise them.
Thanks to Karen Sullivan, West Camel, Anne Cater, Cole Sullivan and all at the Orenda Books Dream Factory. I’ll never take your faith in me for granted.
And finally, to Elaine, Nathan, and Nadia.
Here’s another one for that shoogly table leg.
The Inspirations
Red Eye To New York by Janet Delaney.
(Published by MACK Books, 2021)
New York, by Lou Reed
(On Sire Records, 1989)
The New York Trilogy, by Paul Auster.
(Published by Faber & Faber, 1987)
The Wizard of Oz
(Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed by Victor Fleming. 1939)
On The Road, by Jack Kerouac
(Published by Viking Press, 1957)
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
(Published by Chapman & Hall, 1861)
A Rake’s Progress, by William Hogarth, 1732-1734
Xstabeth, by David Keenan
(Published by White Rabbit Books, 2020)
Scabby Queen, by Kirstin Innes
(Published by 4th Estate, 2020)
And the work of Andy Warhol, Jenny Saville, Lucien Freud, Mary Ellen Carroll, and of course, Madonna.
The Music
State of Independence, by Donna Summer
(Written by Vangelis and Jon Anderson) Available on Polydor Records, 1981
O Superman, by Laurie Anderson
(Written by Laurie Anderson) Available on Warner Brothers, 1981
She’s Gone, by Hall & Oates
(Written by Daryl Hall & John Oates) Available on Atlantic Records, 1973
Hey Jude, by The Beatles
(Written by Lennon and McCartney) Available on Apple Records, 1968
Whitey on The Moon, by Gil Scott-Heron
(Written by Gil Scott-Heron)
Available on Flying Dutchman/RCA Records, 1970
America, by Simon & Garfunkel
(Written by Paul Simon) Available on Columbia Records, 1968
Eight Miles High, by The Byrds
(Written by Clark, McGuinn, Crosby) Available on Columbia Records, 1966
Come Fly with Me, by Frank Sinatra
(Written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy van Heusen)
Available on Capitol Records, 1958
Born to Run, by Bruce Springsteen
(Written by Bruce Springsteen) Available on Columbia Records, 1975
Sara, by Bob Dylan
(Written by Bob Dylan) Available on Columbia Records, 1976
Chelsea Hotel #2, by Leonard Cohen
(Written by Leonard Cohen) Available on Columbia Records, 1974
Holiday, by Madonna
(Written by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens) Available on Sire Records, 1983
Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City, by Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland
(Written by Price and Walsh) Available on Dunhill Records, 1974
Highland Sweetheart, by Love Tractor
(Written by Richmond, Cline, Wellford, Swartz) Available on DB Records, 1983
By the Time I Get to Phoenix, by Glen Campbell
(Written by Jimmy Webb) Available on Capitol Records, 1967
Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl), by Looking Glass
(Written by Elliot Lurie) Available on Epic Records, 1972
On the Way Home, by Buffalo Springfield
(Written by Neil Young) Available on Atco Records, 1968
Queen Bitch, by David Bowie
(Written by David Bowie) Available on RCA Records, 1971
Over The Wall, by Echo & The Bunnymen
(Written by Sergeant, McCulloch, Pattinson, de Freitas) Available on Korova Records, 1981
Make Your Own Kind of Music, by Cass Elliot
(Written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil) Available on Dunhill Records, 1969
The Broad Majestic Shannon, by The Pogues
(Written by Shane McGowan) Available on Island Records, 1988
Love Shack, by the B-52’s
(Written by Pierson, Schneider, Strickland, Wilson)
Available on Reprise Records, 1989
66, by the Afghan Whigs
(Written by Greg Dulli) Available on Columbia Records, 1998
Dirty Blvd, by Lou Reed
(Written by Lou Reed) Available on Sire Records, 1989
Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours, by Stevie Wonder
(Written by Garrett, Wonder, Wright, Hardaway) Available on Motown Records, 1970
You Get What You Give, by New Radicals
(Written by Alexander and Nowels) Available on MCA Records, 1998
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David F. Ross was born in Glasgow in 1964. His debut novel, The Last Days of Disco, was long-listed for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, and received exceptional critical acclaim, as did the other two books in the Disco Days Trilogy – The Rise & Fall of the Miraculous Vespas and The Man Who Loved Islands.
His most recent book, There’s Only One Danny Garvey, topped several Best of the Year lists and was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Fiction Book of the Year 2021.
He is a regular contributor to Nutmeg Magazine and in 2020 he wrote the screenplay for the film Miraculous, based on his novel.
David Ross
@dfr10
@davidfross10
Amazon author page: David F. Ross
Other books by David F. Ross, available from Orenda Books
The Disco Days Trilogy:
The Last Days of Disco
The Rise & Fall of the Miraculous Vespas
The Man Who Loved Islands
Welcome to the Heady Heights
There’s Only One Danny Garvey
Copyright
Orenda Books
16 Carson Road
West Dulwich
London SE21 8HU
www.orendabooks.co.uk
First published in the United Kingdom by Orenda Books, 2022
Copyright © David F. Ross, 2022
David F. Ross has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-914585-40-1
eISBN 978-1-914585-41-8
Typeset in Garamond by typesetter.org.uk
Other books by David F. Ross available from Orenda Books:
The Last Days of Disco
The Rise & Fall of the Miraculous Vespas
The Man Who Loved Islands
Welcome to the Heady Heights
There’s Only One Danny Garvey
The Last Days of Disco
Bobby and Joey’s new mobile disco business seems like the answer to everything, until they lock horns with the local gangster … First in the critically acclaimed, hilarious and heartbreaking Disco Days Trilogy, by one of Scotland’s finest writers.
Early in the decade that taste forgot, Fat Franny Duncan is on top of the world. He is the undoubted King of the Ayrshire Mobile Disco scene, controlling and ruling the competition with an iron fist. But the future is uncertain. A new partnership is coming and is threatening to destroy the big man’s empire…
Bobby Cassidy and Joey Miller have been best mates since primary school. Joey is an idealist; Bobby just wants to get laid and avoid following his brother Gary to the Falklands. A partnership in their new mobile disco venture seems like the answer to everything.
